r later. Well, when she
comed to herself, she begged av' me to help her to bed, and she went up
to her room, and laid herself down, and I thought to myself that at any
rate it was all over for that night. When she war gone, the masther
he soon come back into the house, and begun calling for the sperrits
again, like mad; and Terry said that when he tuk the biling wather into
the room, Mr Barry war just like the divil--as he's painted, only for
his ears. After that Terry wint to bed; and I and Judy weren't long
afther him, for we didn't care to be sitting up alone wid him, and he
mad dhrunk. So we turned in, and we were in bed maybe two hours or so,
and fast enough, when down come the misthress--as pale as a sheet, wid
a candle in her hand, and begged me, for dear life, to come up into her
room to her, and so I did, in coorse. And then she tould me all--and,
not contint with what he'd done down stairs, but the dhrunken ruffian
must come up into her bed-room and swear the most dreadfullest things
to her you iver heerd, Mrs Kelly. The words he war afther using, and
the things he said, war most horrid; and Miss Anty wouldn't for her
dear life, nor for all the money in Dunmore, stop another night, nor
another day in the house wid him."

"But, is she much hurt, Biddy?"

"Oh! her head's cut, dreadful, where she fell, ma'am: and he shuck the
very life out of her poor carcase; so he did, Mrs Kelly, the ruffian!"

"Don't be cursing, I tell you, girl. And what is it your misthress is
wishing to do now? Did she tell you to come to me?"

"No, ma'am; she didn't exactly tell me--only as she war saying that she
wouldn't for anything be staying in the house with Mr Barry; and as she
didn't seem to be knowing where she'd be going, and av' she be raally
going to be married to Mr Martin--"

"Drat Mr Martin, you fool! Did she tell you she wanted to come here?".

"She didn't quite say as much as that. To tell the thruth, thin, it wor
I that said it, and she didn't unsay it; so, wid that, I thought I'd
come down here the first thing, and av' you, Mrs Kelly, wor thinking it
right, we'd get her out of the house before the masther's stirring."

The widow was a prudent woman, and she stood, for some time,
considering; for she felt that, if she held out her hand to Anty now,
she must stick to her through and through in the battle which there
would be between her and her brother; and there might be more plague
than profit in that. But then, a